


Hide and Seek

by mintsugar



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: M/M, Not Beta Read, Time Travel Fix-It, i dont remember why i wrote this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24501571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintsugar/pseuds/mintsugar
Summary: Byleth never meant to go back that far. All he wanted was to save them.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth
Kudos: 18





	1. once more, from the top

His lungs burn, and Edelgard has not loosened her grip on the axe currently buried in his back. As much as he wants to, Byleth just can't move. He lost sight of the Blue Lions in the sudden rush and Edelgard had attacked him when she knew he would throw himself in front of an axe coming straight for Ashe. 

Ashe. Poor, darling Ashe. He was nothing but a bleeding heap at this point. Someone had broken his arms in the struggle and had left him to blend in with the other corpses. At the sight of a decapitated Caspar, he slumped over and let the agony wash over him. 

They were not ready for this fight.

Dimitri had gotten swarmed by an army of their own and everyone else was either dead or about to be.

Byleth had failed them.

Edelgard pulled the axe out hard, smiling at him through blood-soaked and matted hair loose from its updo and circled around to face him, gloating over everyone's dear Professor kneeling helplessly and maybe a couple seconds from death. 

He had to do something. 

Everything burned painfully, and he thought he saw Edelgard as a child, when they first met, mocking him and his inability to change her mind. 

His head was swimming and he didn't have much time left. Were there voices? Someone must be coming to help her, Edelgard looked distraught in her sudden faux childlike appearance. 

She had made the mistake of dropping her guard and facing him, though, and in a last ditch effort to end the war, he tightened his grip on the sword in his hand and thrust it through her chest.

The first thing Byleth is able to hear since he took that axe to the back is a series of ear-splitting screams.

The next thing he hears is Jeralt's voice, joining a cacophony of outrage.

"Byleth!! What have you done?!"

No, that can't be right. His father has been dead for a long time now. 

Byleth lifts his gaze from the now pale child's body in front of him.

He meets the eyes of a crazed, equally young Dimitri and Claude. 

At that point, Byleth realizes he’s not bleeding anymore. 

At that point, Byleth realizes that he’s not imagining Dimitri throwing a mercenary over his shoulder and coming right for him, a feral look Byleth remembers from his Dima, all fury in his adulthood. His Dima, who thought Byleth was a ghost when he returned from a five-year long absence. 

His Dima, who had insisted there was something he wanted to talk to Byleth about after the war. The ring Jeralt gave him had been so heavy in his pocket at the sound of those words, and he had nodded, gripping his sword harder to keep from reaching out and holding Dima's hand.

Now this Dima's hand was reaching for his face, like the time he saw him crush a person's skull in his hand.

Byleth flinches out of the way, maneuvering around him and hitting his temple with the grip of his sword hard enough to knock him out.

Everyone else pauses, and even this young Claude isn't making any moves towards him. 

"Kid?"

Byleth drops his sword and turns to the father that was killed in front of him twice.

“... I’m the wrong Byleth.”

His voice comes out shaky, and borderline emotional, something Jeralt is able to pick on immediately and Byleth sees the comprehension cross his father’s face.

Byleth passes out.

When Byleth comes to, the first thing he notices is that he feels the rumble of wooden wheels underneath him, chattering against the stony roads, jostling him from the deep sleep he must’ve been in. There’s a cloth over his face, and when he begins lifting his hand to move it from his eyes, a voice shushes him and a hand lays atop his own.

Byleth isn’t entirely sure how much time passes like this, but the hand does move, eventually, only to repeat the gesture any time he tries to free himself.  
Finally, the weight beside him shifts and he’s able to see his father, looking more concerned and, frankly, more scared than he’s seen him in a very long time.

“What did you mean when you said you were the wrong Byleth?,” he asks, though by the look on his face it’s clear he has an inkling of what’s wrong.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about… Byleth. The goddess is… was living inside of me, and had granted me the power to turn back time. I turned back too far, without meaning to. I know all about Rhea and Sitri, I know about my lack of heartbeat, I know everything. In my time, that girl, Edelgard, had declared a war against the church, and just before I turned back, she was a split second from murdering me and Dimitri, the crown prince from before,” Byleth answers, sitting up enough to look at his father and examine his surroundings. Other than the mountains, there isn’t much outside, and Jeralt clears his throat to get his attention.

“That’s...the most I’ve ever heard you talk, kid. I gotta say I’m a little freaked out,” Jeralt laughs, leaning against packs of rations. Byleth takes a similar position then, looking out the cart flaps beside him. His father’s mercenaries are following behind them, and when he squints, he finds that Claude and Dimitri are walking at the back of the group, looking sullen and contemplative. They seem to catch his eyes, but Dimitri immediately looks away.

Of course. Dimitri probably hates him. Byleth can never see his Dima again, but if he can keep him and Jeralt alive, it’ll have been worth it.

“Why did they come with us? What happened to Edelgard’s body?” he asks, turning away from their companions and meeting his father’s concerned gaze.

Jeralt, as honest a father as ever, sighs, obviously thinking about how they’re going to deal with the consequences of their actions.

“We burned her body. Got rid of any evidence. Those two have decided to wait for your explanation, though blondie was definitely a bit harder to talk down when he woke up. He said something or other about how it was supposed to be him avenging them. Don’t bother telling me who he’s avenging, I remember the Tragedy of Duscur and can imagine the trauma he went through.”

They ride in companionable silence until they hit a town Byleth’s never heard of.

Jeralt does all the talking, naturally. Byleth and the other mercenaries share a tense silence, but each one comes over to ruffle his hair or nudge his shoulder amicably, and it’s hard to believe that they would risk themselves for Byleth, but they stay by his side. 

At night, when everyone is settled into an empty barn, Claude and Dimitri approach him, fear, anger, and confusion evident on their faces. Claude sits directly in front of him, while Dimitri stands beside him, arms crossed and looking like he’s regretting his decision to let Byleth live.

“So, do you mind telling us why you killed our friend?,” Claude finally asks, tone almost his usual whimsical one except for the way his hands are shaking. At this, Byleth finally laughs, bitter and unexpected even to himself.

“Edelgard was never your friend. Don’t kid yourself, even you know she was plotting something,” he answers, eyes cold once again. He wishes Sothis was here to help him through this conversation, because he’s beyond tired and angry with all the death weighing on his shoulders that has yet to happen.

At that, it seems Claude relents, dropping his shoulders as he relaxes and leans back on his arms. Dimitri, on the other hand, tenses up more at Byleth’s tone of voice.

“Well alright then, tell us what you know, Ashen Demon.”


	2. oh, the things i do

The three of them — Claude, Dimitri, and Jeralt who had walked in at the sound of his son’s voice speaking for more than thirty seconds — stared at Byleth with varying degrees of disbelief, anger, and confusion. 

It was now deep into the night, with the near promise of daybreak approaching, and Byleth’s jaw was sore from speaking more in those couple of hours than ever in his lives combined. Dimitri sat finally, obviously having troubles believing a stranger who killed his step sister in front of him then claimed to be from the future, but all the details, the voices, the haunting and tormenting requests to be avenged, those were irrefutably correct, and not anything he had ever shared out loud. As troubling as it was to have his personal anguish be displayed like that, Dimitri looked as though he may believe Byleth, at least just a bit. Naturally, Byleth left out the part where the two were very much in love, regretfully understanding that this was not his Dima. Claude, meanwhile, after being called Khalid, had no doubts that Byleth was telling the truth, stunned and leaning against the wall to gather himself. Jeralt was just Jeralt, as unreadable as ever and clearly where Byleth had learned to mask any troubles. He is, however, the first to speak.

“Well… you’re obviously right about Rhea, or uh, I suppose we should call her Seiros. I’ve lived a much longer life than a human should, and even I already knew she’d lived longer than I could begin to imagine. What do you wanna do then, kid?,” Jeralt asks, voice low, observing his mercenaries from the corners of his eyes as they slept. The small fire they’d lit at the middle of the stable was dimming, and his face looked like his age was threatening to catch up with him, all shadows.

Byleth reaches out to him, places a hand on his forearm, and squeezes to remind him that he, they, are still with him and Byleth will be damned if he lets anything happen to his father.

“I would love nothing more than to run away from everything… but those who slither in the dark are still out there, and that’ll come to bite us in the ass eventually. I also want these two to be okay, whatever it is they end up deciding to do. Faerghus will need its king, just as the Alliance will need its leader,” Byleth says, turning back to face the two who have remained silent. It hurts Byleth to see a young Dimitri like this, already showing the demons that plagued him in the years Byleth had slept, but there’s also a resolve that’s beginning to settle behind his bright blue eyes.

“Y’know, traveling through time sure has made you chatty,” Jeralt laughs, breaking the tense silence plaguing their corner of the stable. Byleth lets out an amused huff, and Claude straightens up, eyes finally showing some spark.

“They’ll come looking for us. I have no doubt the Church will search high and low for whoever it was that killed the princess, and if we show back up to continue on with our lives, they’ll wanna know where we went and why Alois didn’t find us. In fact, if you say that he was the one to drag the two of you back to the monastery, who’s to say he’s not hot on our tracks?,” he finally asks, leaning forward with a hushed and almost excited tone.

Byleth frowns and cocks his head.  
“‘Us’? ‘Our’? What did you not get when I said the Alliance needs you?,” Byleth answers, flinching a bit when Jeralt elbows his ribs lightly.

At that point, Dimitri perks up, finally intent on talking.

“He’s right, Claude. We each have a duty to our people. I am quite sure you, of all people, will think of a way to misguide the Church. Besides, from the sound of it, Byleth has already done something that’ll change the tides of fate for the better,” he relented, a conflicted look on his face. 

The two of them chatter amongst themselves for a while, and Jeralt takes that time to knock shoulders with Byleth with a heartbroken expression.

“You sound like you’ve been through one hell of a life. How’s about we leave everything? Any of the guys are welcome to follow if they want, but we just pack up and go, leave everything. This is their fight, not ours, By,” he murmurs. It’s an incredibly tempting offer, but Byleth still stumbles over himself as he thinks of an answer.

“There’s things I feel need to be addressed. What Seiros did to our family can never be forgiven… Naturally, I’m sure you’ll assist me, father,” he whispers back, observing Dimitri as Claude pokes fun at him. This Dimitri has already changed from his own, blushing hard at the tips of his ears in annoyance, shoving back at Claude. His Dimitri was a lot more shy in his disagreements with the Almyran boy, but this was sweet to watch nonetheless. They seemed like regular friends, not future rulers of their own territories. 

Byleth desperately wishes he could see his own Dimitri, fumbling and flitting about Byleth nervously, reaching for his hand moments before battle. He can only hope that this Dimitri starts healing now, rather than shortly before a great war.

Jeralt nudges him again, following his line of sight.

“That’s not all, is it? What aren’t you telling me about blondie over there?,” Jeralt asks, less of a smile and more of a smirk spreading on his face.

Byleth heaves a sigh, eyes still on the boy who was once the man that leaned his forehead against Byleth’s own and whispered a promise of later.

“I loved him once. I was going to marry him, I was going to propose with mother’s ring. I helped him through sleepless nights and sat with him through the voices begging to be avenged. I was ready to give him the happy life he deserved,” Byleth answers, finally turning to look at his father when Dimitri catches his eye. Byleth gives his father a small smile, and Jeralt reaches to squeeze his hand.

“I want him to be okay, but I lost you once and that’ll never happen again, even if it means I never see him again,” he finishes, returning his father’s comforting gesture before deciding it was late enough and he excuses himself with a clumsy explanation of time travel being exhausting.

Of course, he dreams of Dima. He dreams of him when he’s awake as well, but at night he cannot run away from the memories. This Dima walks up to him before his coronation and pulls out his own ring. This Dima cries when Byleth pulls out a ring as well, and nearly crushes the wind out of him. This Dima promises forever, and peppers his face with kisses and they live their happily ever fucking after.

When Byleth wakes up, he turns to see Dimitri sitting up and mumbling to himself. Perhaps Byleth is too late to save him, but that’s not going to stop him from trying.

“I know you don’t want my input and most likely don’t even want to be around me if you don’t need to, but I just wanted to tell you that I know what it’s like,” Byleth tries, and as the words leave his mouth he knows he’s made a mistake. Dimitri looks over to him, eyes glazed over, and scoffs.

“I could not do anything to help them,” he mumbles, barely loud enough for Byleth to hear him, so he leans closer.

“Dimitri… I had the power to do something and could never save my father. I tried until Sothis screamed at me that it would never work, insisting that sometimes, people just die and there’s nothing we can do about it. I had the power to change things but there were so many lives I had to let slip from my hands simply because it was something that had already been decided. You were and still are a child who could not have possibly saved all those people. No one was expecting that of you, either. We’re all just so fucking relieved that you lived and are growing into the great person I know you’ll be,” he continues, desperately aching to reach out and take Dimitri’s hand but not knowing how far he could push. Dimitri, meanwhile, was biting his lip almost to the point of tearing it open, eyes swimming but refusing to spill their secrets, and his hands grasp at the hem of his sleeves.

“... I wasn’t strong enough… I have to do this or they’ll never let me go,” Dimitri finally whispers. His voice breaks, and he’s clearly doing his best to either not cry or scream as he kills Byleth for overstepping, but the restraint is more painful than the threat.

“Then, do I seem weak?,” Byleth replies, lowering his voice a bit more as three of his father’s men walk out of the stable to undoubtedly search for food. He nods to them as they go, then turns slightly to face Dimitri, who is already staring at him.

“... No, I suppose not.”

“Then why wasn’t I able to stop my father’s death, with all my strength and Sothis’s power?,” Byleth pushes, facing his stare dead on. Dimitri frowns then, and looks away in clear annoyance.

“You have him now, though,” Dimitri mutters under his breath.

Byleth takes his hand then to get him to meet his eyes once more.

“I lost the love of my life and watched everyone around me die at the hands of that girl,” he replies, raising his voice to a normal volume. He knows Claude has been awake all this time and has been listening, and hopes he’s made his point. Byleth knows fully well that the price was exceedingly steep and also that the conversation has ended, so he squeezes his hand once and goes outside to meet the other mercenaries.

Jeralt approaches him outside, carrying a couple of rabbits.

“You’ve done more than enough, kid. Whether he chooses to listen is up to him now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a long time since i've written fiction, sorry if the pace is wonky


	3. mother dearest

It seems that, no matter how much Byleth tries, there are some fates he cannot escape. As they prepare to leave the camp they’d made, there’s a cacophonous call directed at them that has Jeralt groaning and rolling his eyes.

“Son of a bitch, there’s Alois,” he grumbles under his breath as the man in question comes bounding over to them, elation clear on his face. There’s a smile on the man’s face, though it loses its light when he does a headcount and realizes there is someone missing.

“We were looking everywhere for these kids!... But where is the princess?,” Alois asks, his usual booming voice starting to lower at the looks the mercenaries are exchanging around him.

“We got separated. We don’t know where she is either, and were lucky enough to come across the Blade Breaker and Ashen Demon here,” Claude starts, straightening his posture, sliding too easily into a face of worry and grief. Dimitri is stone-faced beside him, doing his best to avoid meeting anyone’s eyes for too long.

“After cutting down the ones chasing these two, we split up to search the area but couldn’t find anything. These two were lucky, we had been packing up to leave our camp when they came sprinting over to us,” Jeralt continues, taking a step forward almost as though he was covering Byleth’s body with his own, trying to hoard all the attention of those around them.

The rest of their conversation goes about the same as it did in his previous life, and before he knows it, Alois has talked them into following his knights back to the monastery for extra protection, if the bandits were strong and organized enough to run off with the imperial princess without two legendary mercenaries being able to stop them. Jeralt shoots him an apologetic look, but Byleth finds himself unable to form words even in his mind, too swallowed up by the pace that fate has set for him. 

Traveling takes longer than before, though, as they had traveled some distance to purposely avoid this very situation. It gives Byleth more time with his father, recounting every detail about every plot against the Kingdom done by the Adrestian Empire while Claude eavesdrops from a not-so-subtle distance. At some point, he rids himself of any pretenses and sits in their tent with them, listening intently and chiming in with questions that Byleth has an inkling the prince may have asked him to relay.

Said prince has focused on trying to wrap his head around time travel and the conversation they’d had that morning and avoided Byleth like the plague. Any time they caught each other’s eyes, the prince went flying in the opposite direction with a stormy expression, and Byleth tries not to think about how much that hurts.

After what feels like an eternity, the looming monastery grows larger and larger in their horizon until it meets them with a turmoil of emotions hanging in the air as everyone around has been worried about their missing students. At first, there’s bubbles of cheers for their safe arrivals, but they’re short-lived as people start to notice that there’s someone missing. A new, somber atmosphere clings onto Byleth, begging him to regret his actions. One look at Jeralt is enough to strengthen his resolve, but the guilt comes insidiously into his mind.

“You aren’t the bad guy,” Claude mutters as he speeds up to match Byleth’s pace, barely loud enough to be considered speech. Somehow, coming from one of the people with the most ambiguous morals that he’s known, it’s comforting. They maintain a comforting silence until they reach the church, which is when Claude and Dimitri are led away to the nurse for a thorough check-up.

Before he knows it, Byleth and his father are face to face with the very monster he’d feared.

“Lady Rhea” stands tall and proud in front of him, stupidly arrogant and certain she’d be getting her way. “Seteth”, meanwhile, stands at the base of the steps and scowls at Byleth and Jeralt, as annoying as he’d been in his previous life.

He misses the lead up to the conversation, knowing all too well what will come, and finally comes to when he sees her smile take on something more familiarly manipulative.

“You are to be a professor here, and Jeralt will resume his role as captain of the Knights of Seiros,” she proclaims, puffing her chest out and looking at them as though she were the absolute law.

Byleth snorts.

“No.”

Seteth gasps and opens his mouth to yell something inane at Byleth, he can already tell, so he beats him to it.

“Shut up, Cichol.”

Acknowledgement of his true name is enough to stun both him and his sister.

“How dare—,” Seiros begins, eyes flaming and taking a single step down but keeping her position in order to look down on them.

“No. I did not stutter, Seiros. I know exactly what you’ve done to my family as does Sothis and let me tell you, neither of us are particularly pleased at your selfish actions,” Byleth interrupts again, taking a step forward to meet her in her aggravation. Her jaw drops, and she flinches back when Byleth takes another step.

Still, in an attempt to recover, she straightens up and turns to Cichol and Jeralt who are standing to the side, watching the exchange.

“Seteth, clear the room. It seems Byleth and I must speak privately,” she orders, staring her brother down when he makes a noise of noncompliance. Instead, he does exactly as she says, and leaves the two of them in the giant hall, tension sending sparks everywhere.

Byleth sees her lips move, knows she is speaking to him, but all he hears is his own breathing and all he sees is the seething rage on her face. She isn’t used to being told no, isn’t used to being spoken back to. In her mind, her word is absolute and Byleth is the most insolent waste of space and undeserving to be used as a vessel for the progenitor god. Byleth watches the veins in her neck protrude, the rouge of anger and maybe some shame rise up the column of her throat, and she looks now more like a dragon than he’d ever remembered.

He finally snaps out of his trance, and hears as she’s started to talk about his family.

“Your mother was blessed to have carried Sothis’s future body within her, and your father’s greatest accomplishment was holding my blood within him and impregnating her! You are my creation and I will not be spoken in this way! Why, I am practically your own mothe—,” she’s shrieking out, and Byleth’s body reacts before he registers it. He’s shoved her, hard enough to topple her over and land roughly on the steps they were on. He’d thought he hated Edelgard, but this? This monster preaching to him about how thankful he should be and spitting on the memory of his mother and father, as though it was some kind of blessing to be reduced to nothing more than a tool for someone else to inhabit, less than human?

Byleth squeezes Seiros’s throat, eyes swimming with tears but not relenting in his grip. She’s wheezing, disoriented, and clearly panicked at her pet project attacking her.

“I g-gave you life!,” she barely manages to squeak out, fists weakly thumping against Byleth’s face and chest. That, somehow, is his breaking point.

“I would’ve preferred death! Because of you, I’ve seen every single person I know and love die only to come back and die again until I save them, loop after loop, but I could never manage to save my own father! Do you understand the toll that takes on a person’s mind?! Repeatedly losing someone in battle, in countless ways, the look on everyone’s eyes as they know you failed to protect their dear friend? The crippling nausea of going back in time and pretending everything is okay while you already know the feeling of your friends and family bleeding out in your arms, the weight of their dead body, the-the fucking screams of others arround you?! I have no memories of a life before I was already old enough to marry and have been assaulted by death in the life I do remember! You should’ve fucking let me die!,” Byleth howls, face burning hot. He can feel the veins in his neck protruding, the sickening taste of bile starting to rise, the overwhelming heat of shame following suit, and knows that even if he kills her, he can’t forget any of it.

For all the trauma she’s directly caused him, the tears in her own eyes as she’s quickly losing oxygen does nothing to appease his demons, and Byleth realizes he’s turned into the very monster he had to save Dimitri from, all that time ago.

“I just wan...ted my mother b-back,” she sobs out, voice raspy and weak. Byleth releases her then, falling back onto the floor beneath them. Seiros wheezes and gasps but stays where she is.

“I do too, but you never thought of that, did you?,” he cries out softly, voice barely a whisper.

Seiros sits up, slowly and quietly, and the two of them sit in silence for a very long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the rhea confrontation scene had just been sitting in my drafts forever so i finally picked it back up

**Author's Note:**

> I started this a long time ago, abandoned it then picked it back up to answer the question "what if Byleth immediately killed Edelgard after a giant jump to the past?". bother me on twitter (@thebreesiest) if i take too long to update, might forget this was posted


End file.
